Those skits on â€œSaturday Night Liveâ€ depicting debate moderators swooning over Barack Obama and snarling at Hillary Clinton finally shamed the MSM into taking a harder line at the putative Dem frontrunner.Â

In an article carrying the snarkilicious headline â€œAsk Tough Questions? Yes, They Can!,â€ Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank describes a press conference Obama held in San Antonio on Monday:Â

[A] smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.Â

Reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters went after him for his false denial that a campaign aide had held a secret meeting with Canadian officials over Obama’s trade policy. A trio of Chicago reporters pummeled him with questions about the corruption trial this week of a friend and supporter. The New York Post piled on with a question about him losing the Jewish vote.Â

Obama responded with the classic phrases of a politician in trouble. “That was the information that I had at the time. â€¦ Those charges are completely unrelated to me. â€¦ I have said that that was a mistake. â€¦ The fact pattern remains unchanged.”Â

When those failed, Obama tried another approach. â€œWe’re running late,â€ the candidate said, and then he disappeared behind a curtain.Â

Journalists are notoriously thin-skinned and as The Politicoâ€™s Jim VandeHei and John Harris note, “â€™SNLâ€™sâ€™ mockery went straight to reportersâ€™ insecurities. Being accused of falling â€˜in the tankâ€™ for a candidate is the journalistic equivalent of a nerdish high school freshman getting a wedgie from the jocks.â€Â

The pendulum is already swinging in the other direction, thanks to â€œSNL,â€ reportsKatherine Seelyeof The New York Times. She cites a Pew Research Center study analyzing media coverage of Obama and Clinton between February 25 to March 2, the period that coincides with the airing of the two â€œSNLâ€ skits lampooning the Dem debates:Â

Now comes evidence that the publicizing by the Clinton campaign and the news media may have helped flip the coverage as it questioned Mr. Obama more aggressively.Â

Mr. Obama was the subject of 69 percent of all campaign articles last week â€¦ and Mrs. Clinton was the subject of 58 percent of articles about the election â€¦Â

Mr. Obama generated more coverage than any candidate in any other week this year.

â€œThe media scrutinized everything from his legislative record to his connections to Louis Farrakhan, and frequently addressed the question of whether journalists have been too soft on the front-runner for the Democratic nomination,â€ the study said.Â

In addition, many articles about Antoin Rezko, a Chicago builder who was a fund-raiser for Mr. Obama, reported on the start of his trial on kickback charges. Mr. Obama is not implicated in the case. But the two were involved in a land deal. Mrs. Clintonâ€™s coverage level last week was also the highest for her, the report said, and it was less negative than it had been.Â

The Boston Globeobserves that Obama, who was hitherto coasting to his partyâ€™s nomination, suddenly found himself with â€œtwo stubborn opponents: Hillary Clinton – vowing to continue her campaign after victories in Texas, Rhode Island, and Ohio – and a long-delayed but growing media backlash against his candidacy.â€ The paper gives â€œSNLâ€ props:Â

For two months, the Illinois senator dominated the national zeitgeist with his “yes, we can” message of hope and change, a phenomenon celebrated in YouTube videos and T-shirts. But his recent return to earth coincided with the settling of the TV writers’ strike and the reemergence of late-night comedy shows as a political force.Â

Comics are quick to impose a story line and make it stick: Their jokes spring from common knowledge about the candidates – John McCain’s age, Clinton’s marital troubles, Mike Huckabee’s frequent professions of faith.Â

“Saturday Night Live,” the granddaddy of all political comedy shows, chose to build its Obama narrative around the idea that reporters were completely in his thrall. And its skits – on both Feb. 23 and March 1 – presented Obama as an amiable guy inflated to hero status by a worshipful media.Â

In order to save face and prove the â€œSNLâ€ satirists wrong, reporters are going to follow up on every tip and allegation the Clinton machineâ€™s oppo researchers whisper in their ears. Obama has no idea what heâ€™s in for, the poor fellow.Â

By the way: Check out â€œObama Speaks!,â€ Larry Elderâ€™s devastating parody of an Obama speech.

2 users commented in " If He Leads, He Bleeds "

I found the SNL skits to be very close to what had been going on.
Russert forced Hillary to answer questions that no doubt would baffle BO and would then get BOs resoponse.
I saw all of this before SNL ever aired it.
Now BO is having a hissy fit because he just wasnt ready for the normal media coverage of candidates.
No doubt he intended to bypass it all and hope nothing would be said about his shady dealings until after he clinched the nomination.
His only comeback now is tax returns?
Big deal then what 4/15 will come and go and then what does he have to go on?
The Rezko trial will be in full swing by then.
In one week he gave Americans plenty of reason to doubt him-Imagine the multiple questions yet to arise as media finally checks into his ways.
So his staff can call names?
Imagine if Hillarys staff called BO a name!!!!
BO&MO were not and are not ready for this.
They need to go back to their mansion in the corrupt political machine in chicago were they are comfy.
How do two supposidly intelligent lawyers claim they made A BONEHEADED MISTAKE when they did a land deal with Rezko?
They knew exactly what they were doing and didnt care.
Maybe they then already thought they were above the all and could get away with it.

Marlo said,

in March 7th, 2008 at 9:29 am

I totally disagree with betty. I feel her take on the whole situation is wrong. One she was not there with B.O. and his wife when they made that land deal, so who is she 2 say what went on. They are still human! Also i saw the skit also and did not like them at all, I see B.O. as a role model for all men, And those skits did not show the real him. And its easy 2 point a finger at some one who is trying to make history and do what ever is in your power 2 stop them. He will make history and he will change the U.S. for the good

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